How To Find A Cheap Flight

Flights are one of the most expensive parts of travel, and they can quickly eat through your budget, particularly if you are budget traveller backpacking around the world. Unfortunately, it is often a necessity and an unavoidable expense, but there are ways to save money and reduce the impact that flights have on your budget. Here are a few tips to help you find a cheap flight.

Book in advance

If you leave it until the last minute, then your chances of getting a cheap flight are minimal. The further in advance that you can start looking at flights, the better. Airlines will often have sale seats when they first put a flight on sale, meaning that you can get in and grab a seat at a discounted price.

Be flexible with your dates

If you have specific dates that you have to fly on then you are limiting your choices. Sometimes just one day can save you hundreds of dollars. Weekend and holiday flights are usually more expensive, so try a day during the week. Some airlines might only fly to your destination on certain days, so you could be missing out on a cheaper airline because they don’t fly on the day that you have selected.

Shop around

This one goes along with booking in advance. Look everywhere you can to find a cheap flight. Try several different flight search engines like Expedia, Kayak and Skyscanner and compare their prices. If you see a good price, go check out the airline’s website. Sometimes their price will be cheaper because of the commission added on by the search engine.

It’s important to shop around as you might be missing out on exclusive travel discounts like Expedia deals, which could save you a lot of money on your flight.

Searching for a flight

Try alternative routes

When searching for a flight, consider different connection locations. Airlines often have a base city that have more connections and cheaper routes. Perhaps flying out of a nearby city is cheaper and you can get there via a budget flight. Some cities also have secondary airports that budget carriers fly out of.

Frequent flier programs

This is an obvious one if you fly often and like a certain airline alliance. Some alliances have many different airlines in them so you still have a lot of options, and each flight then gives you points towards another flight, ultimately saving you a lot of money in the long run. The too big alliances to consider are Star Alliance and One World.

If you join a frequent flier program, consider getting a credit card that also earns you miles. Then your every day expenses will also go towards getting you a free flight.

Photo by Deanster1983 on Flickr

Flights are an expensive part of travel, but if you do a little bit of research, you can save yourself a lot of money. Money that you can spend on having fun on your travels!

This post was written by me, sponsored by Coupon Codes